Well I don't play multiplayer, thus I haven't paid attention anyway :)

The more I think about it, the more I think that Epic will have to re-release the finished game as UT4 just in order to re-market the game and get people to look at it again. This is the same thing they did with UT2K3/UT2K4, and I think Ut2K3 was a much better, more attractive game than UT3 is.They did have to give rebates to everyone who bought the earlier game, and I wonder if they'll have to do the same again in order to keep the few early adopters they got the the first time around with UT3.

i never got a rebate :(

You had to send in your first UT2K3 disk, and they sent you back a cheque for £10. It was a worldwide thing and you had to send off to whoever was publishing in your region. IIRC, in the UK I had to send off to GT Interactive. Considering 75 percent of UT2K4's content was from UT2K3 in whole, it's no surprise they had to give back cash to those who had already bought the first game only to see it superseded straight away, and be presented with a new game that was mostly made up of what they'd just bought.

Heh, I never knew about that either. Ah well! I still stand by my opinion that its actually a great game though. I mean really, REALLY good. Its light on content, I agree with that. But graphically its stunning, gameplay wise, its one of the most fun games I've ever played and stability wise its as solid as a rock for me and seems pretty well polished. As stated before though, I don't really bother with online, I just use bots so if problems exist online, i wouldn't know.

There's an interesting theory going around that Epic deliberately crippled the mod system for the PC version of UT3. They want PC mods on the PS3, yet the PS3 has all kinds of legal and technical limitations, so rather than have a load of mods appear on the PC only, they crippled the PC mod system down to the simple PS3 version, so that anything made on the PC would also run on the PS3 version.Another example of Epic putting all the emphasis on the PS3, and screwing UT3 on both platforms in the process.That "very soon" second patch has been very delayed too. People were expecting it over a week ago, and it still doesn't fix a heck of a lot of basic stuff that should have been there at launch.

Evidence of that theory? :???: Is the latest Unreal Ed crippled in any way compared to earlier renditions :?:

Mods are more than Unreal Ed. Just look at what I put upstream from the Mapmixer author. Or have a look around the Epic mod-making forums.

Another major mod maker bailing on UT3 (http://www.gaimtheory.com/blogs/2007/11/pro_gaming_iii_the_future_of_tam):

v1.2 is out

Gameplay:

- Increased UTGame MaxPlayersAllowed to 64.
- Fixed leviathan turret instant refire exploit.
- Fixed errant lock on warnings when no longer in vehicle.
- Fixed first person weapons in demo playback.
- Fixed translocator telefrag victim message.
- Fixed encouragement sounds not being randomly picked by bots.
- Implemented viewobjective spectating system for Warfare.
- Fixed berserk held by driver applying to all vehicle turrets.
- Only force low gore on German versions that were low gore only before being patched.
- Fix for unnecessary content staying in memory on seamless travel.
- Fixed shaped charge node exploit.
- Fixed the Scavenger exploit.

User Interface:

- Clicking on the settings tab goes to directly to the full settings menu.
- Added VOIP speaker portraits to HUD.
- Fixed character portraits sometimes not showing up on HUD or not staying up long enough.
- The Host server menus will no longer disable internet options if CheckNatTypeDisplayError returns true. It's just a warning now.
- Fixed the CD key always prompting when the user has no network card
- Added support for commandline log in -login=xxx -password=xxx. This also allows Gamespy comrade and other external applications to be used to launch network clients.
- Added UI option to hide objective paths (the white arrows).
- Added UI option to enable joystick support.
- Added JOIN to midgame menu when spectating.
- Added cancel button to "logging in" message box.
- Added support for auto-updating UI with new options.
- Improved language support for French, Spanish, Italian, and German.
- Joystick key bindings in UI display properly.
- Added game and UI support for customizing crosshair scaling.
- Added "Add Favorite" button to Server Browser server list tab.
- Fixed favorites Tab Page server details not updating.
- Improvements to voice menu. Added "status" section.
- Leave "Disconnect" and "Exit Game" on the mid game menu when seamlessly travelling so that players have a way to abort lengthy downloads
- Show "Change Team" button before the match has started.
- Added support for localized "single score needed" string.
- Tweaked some HUD message font sizes.
- Favorites/History lists list servers that are currently offline.
- Favorites/History lists don't stop working as the number of servers in them crosses max threshold for GS query.
- Fix for end of round scoreboard displaying extra "Player" bots.
- Fixed leviathan deploy icon positioning.

Networking:

- Added support for autodownloading packages while in gameplay or while travelling.
- Auto team re-balancing before map transition if bPlayersBalanceTeams is set.
- Fixed dedicated server memory leaks.
- Force client state synchronization when in spectating state. Fixes sporadic issues with players not being able to join games.
- Fixed sounds not being heard correctly by clients if the sound location is the Actor's location and the Actor is not relevant to that client.
- Fixed spectators being unable to move after a level transition.
- Fixed track turrets being in the wrong position on clients in some cases after being destroyed.
- ConnectionTimeout and InitialConnectTimeOut now both 60.0. Addresses both clients failing connection because they take too long to load a level, and initial connections staying open too long.
- Fixed HTTP download compression.
- Fixed a bug where download during seamless travel would break because the downloader was keeping a pointer into the package map's list, which is unsafe while the game is in progress because that list could have more items added to it (and thus the memory rearranged) at any time
- Fixed a bug where in rare cases packages would get downloaded twice.
- Fixed spectators able to enter as extra players in Duel.
- Fixed issue where CTF, vCTF, and WAR maps are listed in the server browers when searching for a DM game when server changed gametypes.
- Fixed bots not replicating their view pitch, so their animation looks better in net games.
- Strip OwningPlayerName= from the URL, as this is determined elsewhere and was breaking dedicated internet servers launched from the UI.
- Fixed package downloading not moving on to the next download method if it successfully downloads the file, but that file is not the version that the server is requesting.
- Fixed client crash if the user disconnects while downloading a file during a seamless travel.

Server administration:

- TCPLink and Webadmin functionality implemented.
- Banning is now based on CD key hash, so players can’t circumvent bans by creating a new profile.
- Fixed being unable to kickban players with | in their names.
- Added versioning information to the game settings
- Dedicated servers don't require DirectX shader model 2.0
- Fixed AdminForceTextMute and AdminForceTextUnmute.
- Restored the compress and decompress commandlets.
- Fixed AdminCmdOk() function not working properly if you were the listen server.
- Banned IDs readability improved.
- Added MaxClientTravelTime config option to GameInfo. If set, clients are kicked if they take longer than this many seconds to travel between maps.

Mod support:

- Added ScriptedTexture, a type of render to texture that gives Canvas access to script/C++ for rendering custom overlays.
- Added a version of DrawTile() to Canvas that takes a Texture instead of Texture2D so render to texture stuff like ScriptedTextures can more easily be used.
- Added Timestamp function to UObject, returns a string in the format YYYY/MM/DD - HH:MM:SS
- Weapons now take roll from player viewrotation.
- Fixed custom character DLC not applying until the next time the game is run because the default object was not updated after combining the .ini files.
- Added a ModFamilies array to UTCustomChar_Data to allow mod authors to add families to the list.
- Fixed Change Node Status Kismet action not working on fully constructed powernodes.
- Merged ageia particle fixes.

Map specific:

- Fixed DM-Deck get out of world exploit
- Fixed DM-Gateway portals sometimes sending you back to your starting point.
- Fixed CTF-Coret collision exploit.
- Fixed kismet spawned key vehicles not showing on host minimap. Fixes tank showing on host minimap in VCTF-Kargo.

AI improvements:

- New orb carrier strategy AI.
- Improved bot hoverboard use.
- Reduced bot orb spawner camping.
- Fixed bots stuck on orb spawner unable to grab flag.
- Low skill bots use artillery properly.
- Tweaked shooting at nodes vs shooting at enemies.
- No human bonus to threat value.
- Improved threat picking AI, taking into account effectiveness of bot's weapon.
- Tweaked bot AI for link gun, flak cannon, redeemer, and AVRiL.
- Bots tend to stay on same enemy more, and focus on key vehicles more.
- Tweaked campaign auto skill adjust.
- Possible safe fix for bot navigation issues with staticmeshcollections on console. Also a performance improvement on PC and console.
- Tweaked rules for whether to attack node or enemy first.
- Improved bot AI for defending nodes with an orb.
- Fixed pathing issues that were causing bots to get stuck in some places. When a move fails, force a route refresh. Add cost to reachspecs when bot fails repeatedly.
- Improved AI code for adjusting around obstacles. If adjust left and right fail, try moving to center of reachspec.
- If previous move failed, don't allow "advanced tactics" (serpentine, etc.) for next move.
- Added FailedMoveTarget and MoveFailureCount to controller to track movement failures.
- Added bForceNoDetours to UTBot. Don't allow detours when bot is approaching a neutral node (more important to touch node first).
- Fixed bots thinking they've reach the orb spawner without quite getting there and touching the orb.
- Fixed cases where bots could get stuck failing to translocate over and over - bots know to give up now.
- Adjusted bot reaction time to seeing new enemies.
- Improved bot AI for dealing with lifts and hoverboards.
- Bots taunt after winning a match.
- Bots now can be fooled by feign death.
- Sandstorm has more impact on bots being able to acquire/aim at enemies.